Rains

The weather here in Bangalore has become a little pleasant over the last few weeks. Though it is hot in the afternoons, we are experiencing evening showers. Even yesterday, it rained very heavily for almost half an hour when I was at office. It was lovely. Literally nothing outside could be seen properly. Everything looked foggy. And the best part, nights are cool now. 


I usually like the rains, but like all selfish people I don't prefer to be held up in the rain or don't like any of my activities getting delayed owing to rains. Last week I had such an experience. Usually I always make it a point to carry my umbrella when the rainy season starts. I also made a few futile attempts to find my umbrella which I was not using for a very long time now. One evening, on my way home, when I was in the bus itself I noticed that the clouds were getting darker. As I was nearing my stop, big drops started falling. But I did not care a bit, as my home is just a 3 minutes walk from the road. While I thought of these things, in a matter of seconds, it started to rain heavily. It was raining so heavily that the drops falling felt like pin pricks and I was almost drenched by the time I crossed the road and ran to the shelter of the shop by the road. 


It was way too windy also. Everybody started taking shelter and even people with umbrellas did not dare to go out in that rough weather. After almost 30 minutes, it calmed down a bit. By then people with umbrellas and who had their own vehicles started heading home. It was still raining heavily and I could not run home. I decided to wait for another some time. During this time, I envied all those people who had umbrellas, who had their own vehicles, and those who had their dads, husbands, or siblings who came to pick them. The feeling was horrible. I waited for another 15 minutes and then made a decision - to run home. If I were to stay there I would have stayed there even longer. So I got out in the rain and almost ran till home, occasionally halting under the big trees for a moment or so. 


Once I was home and changed into a fresh dress, I loved the rain all over again. It was a cool and even nicer with a hot drink watching the rains.

Doodle - Check it out!

I like most of the google doodles and I loved the one for today. It is for Gideon Sundback, associated with the work on the zipper. Just head over to Google and check it out.


Just to give you a sneak peek, the page looks like this. You can use your mouse to drag open the zipper. :-)

And even if you are a day late, you can check it out at the Google doodles museum.

Over the past couple of weeks

Its been a long while now. Not that my life is not sweet anymore. It is just busy! My job keeps me busy during the day and once home cooking and other things keep me even busier. Phew, I just wait to get the chores done and lie down on the bed. Crafting also is slow. Gardening involves only watering the plants now. I have not been planting anything new. Reason - we will be going out of town for a week. I have made a temporary arrangement to get my plants watered for a few days. So didn't want to plant anything new during this phase.

And when I say out of town, it obviously means going down to Kerala. Its been some time now that we visited our families. So we are just eagerly waiting for it to be the weekend and hoping that the next week goes sloooowly. Though we know that what awaits us there is the hot humid climate, lots of travels, and tiredness. But still we love all those when in Kerala :-)

Here, over the past few weeks we had been doing some shopping. Yarn shopping topped the list. I did purchase two bagfulls of yarn while I went to Commercial and Raja Market. Next on our list was baby girl dresses for my husband's brother's kid. We often get exhausted shopping for her because all baby dresses are cute and we have a tough time deciding the best ones. On one of my ventures to the Commercial street I found some cute aprons which I readily picked up. They looked like the Cath Kidson aprons and there were a lot with floral prints and pleasant colors. Some baking supplies also came along - cute measuring spoons and silicon cup cake moulds and oven spreads. Those would have to wait until I am back to be used though. Then I did a little bit of fabric shopping as well. Well, I have improved a bit on my sewing front. I have been successful in stitches a couple of kurtis for myself and now hubby agrees for fabric shopping also without a change in expression ;-) I don't remember what else we shopped for. I just know that my travel bag is almost full now. Need to dump in our clothes more, and we are good to go.

The next few days will be even more hectic for me. Finishing off all the perishables in the kitchen, shifting the pots to a shady location, cleaning the house, making a list of essential things to do before going, paying off the bills for the month, doing the last bit of shopping, laundering, folding, ... phew!

Lemons Drizzle

Ever since I saw Lucy's Lemon drizzle cake, I had the urge to make one. I was not very sure of how it would turn out but decided that I should try it. I did substitute a few items due to unavailability. I had bought a new whisk recently and took this opportunity to try it out.

As the baking progressed the house was filled with a sweet fragrance of the lime. I just loved it. And I made the drizzle also. Oh! Loved how the cake was glistening.

Once it was cooled, I couldn't wait any further to taste it. I took a slice. It was heavenly! Usually when I bake, I throw in more ingredients. But this recipe was so simple and very less ingredients. And yet I think it was the tastiest I made.

Time for some pictures now.

Next time, I may use some cream and toppings! :-)

Beginning to get Greener

There is a lot of sprouting activity happening in the pots on my terrace and in the kitchen. Each day I see tomato sprouts, tendrils on the green pea shoots, chillies foilage, lovely red leaves on the red spinach, and many more eyes and buds on the stem cuttings. I literally love to see the buds and sprouts. It makes my heart jump with joy.

Yesterday hubby and me transplanted tomato and chilly seedlings into their originally intended pots.

What I hate and love both about gardening is my hands getting dirty. I am not using any gloves (I may have to start using though) and initially don't like messing up my fingers in the sand. But once I start the digging and raking and my hands are dirty, I end up playing in the sand like a kid only to realize how dry my hands become later.

I intend to transplant the red spinach seedlings next week. Taking pictures are really difficult these days. By the time I reach home, it almost starts getting dark and so am not able to click pictures that do full justice to the beauty of the leaves and shoots.

Dried to Green

My plants have been in a pity state for a quite some time now. There were many evenings when I was so busy to go up to the terrace and water them and many a days I completely forgot owing to the other jobs I had at hand. And to top all these, we had to travel for a couple of days on short notice without being able to make arrangements to water the plants. Result,



Yes, all my plants dried. One or two which were strong enough to survive, I gave them ample of time to wither.

Now my terrace has just a lot of pots with soil and no greens.

So what am I doing now? I am replanting. I started on with taking the soil out of the pots, aerating them properly, and filling it back. There are 26 pots - small, medium, and large. Till date, I have been able to refill only 9 pots. It takes a lot of time for this task as the soil has kind of got set in the pots. So before I start on the raking, I have to water the pots, wait for some time and then start off. Once half way through the pot is raked out, I can tilt out the rest of the soil. This is easier in the smaller and medium sized pots. But doing it alone for the big pots is very difficult owing to the weight. I left out those pots for a day when hubby is at home. Currently, each day, after office hours, I get around 30 minutes at home, before it gets dark. In this time, I am able to complete the refilling process for three pots.

So in the 9 pots I have refilled, I have started sowing seeds and putting cuttings. Indoors also I have started sowing seeds so that they sprout quickly and don't get dried up in the hot sun these days.



Well, lot of work is still left to be done to make my garden healthy, green, and lively again!